


Slow News Day

by JohnAmendAll



Category: Absolute Power (Radio)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Victorian, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-18
Updated: 2012-02-18
Packaged: 2018-07-28 07:22:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7630561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JohnAmendAll/pseuds/JohnAmendAll
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Foggy Victorian London, an apartment in Baker Street, a young woman with a mystery that needs solving... some people might enjoy that sort of thing. Not Charles Prentiss.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Slow News Day

Though the Baker Street rooms we shared, and our business premises, were one and the same building, my partner nevertheless contrived, morning after morning, to be fashionably late. Thus, when he swaggered into our first-floor sitting room one raw morning in November, 1867, I had already been there for some time — and so had our prospective client.

"Morning," he said, tossing his top-hat onto a candelabra. "And who might you be, young lady?"

Our visitor, a dark-haired woman with a determined air, cleared her throat.

"I have come to you to solve the mystery of my father's disappearance," she said. "The police are baffled, and you—"

"Can I just stop you there?" My colleague walked around her, inspecting her with an air of impartial detachment. "Have you come here in search of a detective?"

She leaned forward. "But of course, Mr. Holmes."

"Then I suggest that you get up, retrace your footsteps to the ground floor, read the number of this building, and evaluate your actions in that light. Good day, miss."

"I don't..."

"He's saying that if you want the detective agency, they're three doors down the road," I remarked, from the depths of my armchair.

She blushed. It didn't do anything for her.

"A thousand apologies, Mr..."

"Prentiss," my partner said, curtly. "Make a long arm and ring for Sandy, would you, McCabe?"

I did as I was bidden, and in due course our housekeeper arrived to escort our embarrassed visitor from the premises.

"Do you think we ought to put a sign up?" I said. "It might save some time. Something simple, like 'We are not the detectives. Look over there.' And one of those hands, you know, with a finger pointing in the right direction."

Prentiss gave me a withering look. "McCabe, publicity is our business. We don't give it out free of charge." He glanced at the morning's post, which mainly consisted of unpaid bills, and tossed it aside. "If that preposterous detective agency wants us to put up signs advertising their services, they can pay for it like anybody else." With a gesture, he indicated that the topic of conversation was at an end. "Anything in the papers?"

There were, in fact, a great many things in the newspapers: the prospect of war in the Ottoman Empire, a gruesome murder in the East End, the theft of a Duchess's tiara, and the destruction of a mansion near Canterbury by an explosion, the cause of which scientists had found themselves at a loss to explain. But I knew that none of these would pique the interest of Charles Prentiss.

"It's rumoured that the Earl of Beggleswood has formed an attachment to Jinky," I said, glancing at an article in the inner pages of the _Morning Post_.

"Am I supposed to know who 'Jinky' is?"

I checked the article. "She was in the last but one run of 'No Exit'. You remember. The one with the wardrobe malfunction."

"Oh, yes, her." He shook his head. "McCabe, I still have my pride. This agency is not yet in such reduced circumstances that it needs to beg for crumbs from a twopenny-ha'penny chorus girl whose only claim to fame is flashing her ankles in front of the Prince of Wales."

"We need somebody's business," I countered. "What have we had from your friend Archibald in the last six weeks? A profile of the Downing Street cat, and we didn't even get paid for it in the end. Though I suppose it was some sort of achievement to write a feel-good cat story that was deemed to be a threat to national security."

"They should have expected it. Request of Charles Prentiss a cat story, and you shall have a cat story the like of which you have never seen before. One that will make your hair stand on end."

"Oh, so that's what happened to the Foreign Secretary, is it? I thought he'd just managed to get a faulty batch of brilliantine. Still, I suppose if you don't want to go and find any new business, there's always..."

He raised his hand in warning. "Don't say it, McCabe!"

"...The Sir Harold Dixon account," I persisted.

"That will do!" He jumped to his feet. "McCabe, by the end of today you will be eating those words. I shall take the Underground to Westminster and get us engaged by two, or preferably three, clients with mutually exclusive demands. There will be subterfuge, McCabe, clandestine meetings, panics, press campaigns, interviews, and above all, wheezes. I shall show the world, once and for all, that I am not to be trifled with!"

He swept out of the room, slamming the door behind him. I sat back, and debated briefly whether it was too early for a glass of claret. On balance, I thought a small glass might be justified. Whether Prentiss succeeded in his aims or not, I had, at least, got him out of the building and causing trouble for somebody else for a few hours.


End file.
